Saturday, 27 September 2014

Since its inception in 1905, Rotary was a “male only”
bastion. In 1989, Rotary International’s
Council of Legislation voted to eliminate the “male only” provision of
Rotary's Constitution. Since then, women have become
members and leaders in the Rotary Clubs and Districts throughout the world.

To celebrate the 25 years of this landmark change, our
Club organized a Fellowship Event hosted by the lady Rotarians on Wednesday, 26
September, 2014. An evening of fun and
enjoyment filled with the melodious voice of Ms. Rochana Dahanukar was the
essence of the with a special dinner spread of Mexican cuisine and an evening
of musical entertainment.

Starting off the evening with the national anthem
being sung by all the lady Rotarians taking the stage followed by a welcome
address by Past President Rtn.Maya Bhatt, the first female member inducted into
the privileged echelons of our Club way back in 1991. Rtn Maya Bhatt welcomed
all present on behalf of the 11 lady Rotarians of our Club and went on to
introduce the highlight of the evening viz., Ms Rochana as a person with an
inimitable style, melancholy voice and stunner looks, traditionally a ghazal
singer with two albums to her credit and who explores her music in soul raga.
Besides being a superb singer, Rochana is a voice training guru, a music
composer and director, she is a link that connects classical music to love
poems!

Rochana began the musical evening with us by saying
that she was happy, nostalgic and proud to be with us that evening. Starting
with the deeply melodious “tere nainon ne jaadu kiya”, the vintage of the songs
rendered that evening dated back to 1949! Farid Khanum’s ‘aaj jaane ki zid na
karo’ was greeted with wah-wahs and thunderous applause. A special dedication
to rtn Kalpana was ‘babuji dheere chalna’ which was followed by Bollywood
melodies like ‘kajara mohabbatwala’, ‘jabaan pe laaga re…’, ‘ae dil mujhe bata
de, ‘jawaan hai mohabbat haseen hai zamana..’, ‘hoton se chulo tum’, ‘ishaaron
ishaaron mein dil lene waale’. Each of the songs rendered were special in their
own way, with the audience clapping in appreciation. The evening ended with
‘damadam mast kalandar’ with the audience freaking out completely and enjoying
the rendition to their utmost!!

Kudos to the lady Rotarians of our Club for arranging
such an entertaining and well enjoyed evening!!

Saturday, 20 September 2014

Membership growth is the life-blood of
Rotary, as they say… With a view to
creating awareness amongst members about importance of membership retention and
growth as well as apprising the newly joined Rotarians and prospective
Rotarians of the immense potential of Rotary to enhance their lives – both
professional as well as personal – a Seminar was organized by Zone III of
District 3140 under the leadership of Avenue Chair Rtn.Chetan Desai on Friday,
19th September, 2014 at Rotary Service Centre, Juhu, Mumbai. The Seminar, which was hosted by our Club
jointly with Rotary Club of Mumbai North Island with 15 other clubs from Zone III
being the co-hosts, received overwhelming response from members and prospective
members.

Forum Leader of the Seminar, PDG Bharat Pandya kicked-off the Seminar with his opening remarks followed by audio-visual presentations by
Rtn.Chetan Desai. This was followed by a
slick presentation on the guiding principles and objects of Rotary by District
Secretary & Convenor of the Seminar, Rtn.Virendra Widge. He also gave a
glimpse of the various humanitarian projects being undertaken under the Rotary
banner by various Rotary Clubs as well as its partner organizations viz. Inner
Wheel Clubs, Rotaract Clubs and Interact Clubs.

Dist.Training Facilitator PP Rtn.Indumati
Gopinathan spoke from her heart on how Rotary connects through everlasting
friendships, fellowships and bonding while engaging in implementing sustainable
projects in the community in the six common areas identified by Rotary
International. She gave personal
examples from her life on how Rotary had positively shaped her persona and how
unknown Rotarians from another country had come to her rescue to save the life
of her nephew who had taken seriously ill at Bali in Indonesia. Apart from the
global connect, Rotary also connects generations, families and communities
through Interactors (rotary wing for school going kids), Rotaractors (for
college students), Inner Wheel Clubs (for wives of Rotarians and women from the
community), Senior Citizen Groups and Rotary Community Corps.

A few of the Rotarians
shared their personal experience in Rotary.
Rtn.Vinod, a Rotarian since 19 years, had introduced as many as 56
members to the Rotary World. Rtn.Saif
Quereshi, a recent entrant to the prestigious Arch Klumph Society of The Rotary
Foundation started his connect with Rotary as an Interactor and later was
selected for Rotary Youth Exchange programme.
Rtn.Phanish Shetty spoke on how his Club – RC of Lokhandwala Complex
Kandivli was transformed from a low membership to an enthusiastic and vibrant
club with one of the best membership growth through involvement of members and
prospective members in club projects.

Dist.Trainer PDG Rtn.Bansi
Dhurandhar explained on importance of servicing the new Rotarians with an
analogy of treating them as ‘our customers’.
As in the case of any business, existing customers need to be retained,
so was the case with new Rotarians who need to be paid special attention by the
senior Rotarians for effective assimilation and retention.

PDG Rtn.Bharat Pandya summed up the discussions with some
very interesting and thought provoking slides and quotes. At the end, DG Rtn.Ajay Gupta thanked
everyone for organizing the Seminar in a very professional way. He was confident that the District would
achieve its targeted growth of membership in the current Rotary Year. He however cautioned the Clubs that the
growth should not be achieved at the cost of quality of membership.

Thursday, 11 September 2014

As we all know,
Rotaractors are a part of the global community of young adults taking action
for positive change. Rotaract Clubs
bring together youth ages 18 – 30 to take action in their communities, develop
their leadership and professional skills and have fun…

To celebrate the
Youth Month in September, Rotaract Clubs sponsored by our Club were invited to
showcase their talents in singing, dancing and drama in our regular meeting held
on 10th September, 2014… Five
of our Rotaract Clubs viz. Rotaract Clubs of Andheri, MithibaiCollege, N.M.College, SathayeCollege
and UshaPravinGandhiCollege accepted the
invitation and performed to a full house of almost 150 in the audience.

The show began with
two outstanding street plays by UPGCollege and
N.M.College. While UPGCollege play depicted atrocities and
ills in our society, more particularly on the women, the play by N.M.College
focused on child abuse in India. Both the plays were enacted with very strong
performances and well-written scripts conveying extremely powerful messages to
the audience. If these are the concerns of the educated youth of today, we can
be sure there is a ray of hope for a new India free of the present day evils
and tribulations.

This was followed by
hi-energy dance performances by N.M.College, MithibaiCollege and SathayeCollege
which were quite entertaining and applauded by the appreciative audience.
Surely, the participants had put in a lot of hours practicing the steps as the
groups were hip-hopping to the Bollywood numbers in perfect sync.

After the street
plays and dances the rotaractors presented their singing talent. Ritu Kapadia the sole
representative from Rotaract Club of Andheri enthralled the audience by singing
two numbers, one in English and the other one in Gujarati. A group of participants representing UPGCollege
performed ‘Accapella’ which is
singing without accompanying musical instruments and using the beauty of human
voice entirely for musical entertainment.
The performance was truly enjoyable.
Rotaractors from SathayeCollege sang the
soul-stirring Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Meri
Maa…” accompanied by Guitar.

The show ended with a
trained classical singer, Devyani from MithibaiCollege,
singing three melodious numbers to leave the audience asking for more.

Rotary Ann Neelima
Raval, President of Inner Wheel Club of Bombay West and Rtn.Rajul Doshi
adjudged Rotaract Club of UPGCollege as no.1
entertainers. The no.2 position was
shared by Rotaract Clubs of SathayeCollege and MithibaiCollege. The cash prizes to the winning Clubs were
sponsored by Rtn.Apurva Nanavati. Calvin
Klein, well-known for its range of frangrances and co-sponsors of the event
gave away free-gifts to each and every participant. The sponsorship was arranged
by Ms.Poorna Doshi, daughter of Rtn.Rajul Doshi and Late Rtn.Satish Doshi.

Rtn.Chandramohan Saigal ably compeered the
programme while Rtn.Harminder Patheja gave a hearty vote of thanks.

Saturday, 6 September 2014

The first Chandaben Mohanbhai Patel Rotary Excellence Awards Ceremony was held on Friday, 5th September, 2014 at Rotary Service Centre where over 100 students from neighborhood schools and institutions were felicitated and awarded cash prizes.These awards were instituted recently by Rotary Club of Bombay West (RCBW) with the help of donation of Rs.1 Crore by Past President Rtn.Mohanbhai Patel through his family trust to Rotary Service Public Charitable Trust (RSPCT). Earnings from the dedicated corpus created by RSPCT would be utilized every year to give away cash prizes of Rs.10000, Rs.5000 and Rs.3000 to students ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their respective schools / institutions at Board/University level examinations. Rtn.Mohanbhai Patel has also given a further donation of Rs.50 lacs to RSPCTfor institution of educational excellence awards project for toppers at board exams at schools in the tribal belt of Dahanu-Talasari Talukas in Maharashtra. They are being named as Supa Farms Rotary Excellence Awards. Perhaps, this is the largest single donation received by any Rotary Club in India for a project aimed at encouraging academic excellence.The cash awards and certificates of excellence were handed over to the students by Ex-Vice Chancellor of SNDT University, Rtn.Dr.Rupa Shah in presence of Past President Rtn.Mohanbhai Patel, President Rtn.Mohan Joshi and Past President Arvind Shah who also headed the Club Committee for the Awards. Inspirational talks by Rtn.Mohanbhai Patel and Dr.Rupa Shah were the highlights of the evening which the students and parents will cherish for life. Before the awardees left the venue, they were personally handed over framed picture of them receiving the awards which was a delightful surprise element planned and executed meticulously by the Club.The ceremony was witnessed by jam-packed hall with several principal and teachers of the select schools, parents and family members of the awardees, specially invited guests, Inner Wheel President and members, Rotarians and Rotary/Anns. Rtn.Shefali Shah ably compered the event while Rtn.Anand Gupta and R/Ann Kavita Rege respectively introduced Rtn.Mohanbhai Patel and Dr.Rupa Shah to the gathering.

Inner Wheel Club of Bombay West in association with Rotary Club of Bombay West celebrated Teachers' Day on Friday, 5th September, 2014 at Sheila Raheja Hall, Rotary Service Centre, Juhu, Mumbai. A tradition established by the Club since over 20 years, outstanding Teachers from the neighborhood schools were felicitated by Ms.Neelima Raval, President of IWCBW and Rtn.Mohan Joshi, President of RCBW along with several members from both the Clubs. Also invited at the function were children from select schools to perform at the event in honour of their teachers. Motivational songs, poems, dances and skits were on display from the young ones which was appreciated by the audience. The programme was followed by a brief demo of eLearning module from a well-known Pune-based social enterprise for the benefit of the teachers and students present at the function.